Reading and writing go hand in hand as input and output skills, respectively. The former allows you to gather information and ideas. Meanwhile, the latter will enable you to share those in a readable format in a different context. These two are most especially vital in producing academic papers because you must do prior research, which involves reading, to make an output. If you only focus on writing, you will lack the necessary resources to substantiate your insights and claims.

Therefore, these skills are crucial for any student. Whether you are in high school or college, you must practice how to read critically to create engaging works. Even if 'Write My Essay' companies exist, you can rely on your abilities because of your enthusiasm and diligence. If you want to be an excellent writer, you must be a voracious reader first. In this article, you will know more about how critical reading improves writing.

Improves Your Critical Thinking Skills

There might be times when you catch yourself criticizing books and other materials you read. You are not alone. Sometimes, we unconsciously make remarks on the literary piece's structure, author's style, and even grammatical errors. You might even give star ratings whenever someone asks you for book recommendations. The moment you can form criticisms and give justifications already enhances your critical thinking skills. It might be easy to say that you like something, but to justify your opinion is a different case. For this, you will need logical reasoning and knowledge of the literary conventions, which do not come easy to others.

Another instance wherein reading improves your critical thinking skills is by answering the comprehension questions of standardized or entrance tests. Did you ever find them too challenging to answer? It might be attributed to several factors, like the questions' difficulty level and your lack of comprehension or critical thinking. While critical thinking is not only used in reading, it is most especially significant in this endeavor. To answer the given questions, you need to improve your critical reading skills. This can be achieved by developing your critical thinking skills by reading more materials of varied types and complexity.

Allows You to Study Grammar in Context

Not everyone enjoys studying grammar lessons, especially if you are on your own or without your teacher's guidance. However, you can use another way to make your learning more engaging. Instead of studying using your textbook, you might be interested in learning while reading other materials, like news articles or short stories.

Doing this allows you to observe how authors apply the grammatical rules you are supposed to learn. This way, you can notice how native speakers use specific rules in the target language. Moreover, learning grammar in context allows you to be immersed in different structures of sentences. It will enable you to see the systematic relationships between form, meaning, and use. Afterward, you can apply what you have learned when communicating with others or writing various outputs. As a result, your work will become more authentic and familiar to the readers.

To do this more effectively, you must also learn one critical reading tip: annotating. Through this, you can note your observations on how a particular grammatical rule is used in the text. Also, it will help you develop your focus and analytical thinking skills.

Expands Your Vocabulary

Part of becoming an excellent writer is widening your vocabulary. By doing this, you can use precise words whenever you communicate or express your thoughts, insights, and stories. Knowing more words enables you to create more engaging stories because you can depict an emotion better or give a more detailed description. Gone are the days when you felt at a loss for words because you do not know which one to use.

However, it would help if you are active while reading, especially if you encounter unfamiliar words. As mentioned previously, you should annotate by highlighting the ones you do not understand. Afterward, look for their meaning in the dictionary and indicate which definition is appropriate in the context. Moreover, you can list down the new words you encountered and remember their meaning or synonyms. Later on, it would be best to use them in your next writing task. This way, you did not stop at the acquisition of knowledge but proceeded to apply.

Introduces You to Different Writing Styles

While knowing several writing tips can help you, feeling lost in finding your identity as a writer is inevitable. Whether you have been trying to improve your craft for a long time or not, you can still feel inexperienced if you do not expose yourself to other materials. Therefore, it would be best if you try to read varied reading texts from fiction to nonfiction.

Doing this enables you to observe and study the mechanics and writing styles that authors use in their work. Also, you can notice how they incorporate literary devices, approaches, and techniques that you might have seen elsewhere. Examples of these include in media res, deus ex machina, and foreshadowing. Without seeing how they are used, your knowledge about these things will remain as information. But if you discern them in actual work, you can find the text more interesting. It could lead you to integrate them into your outputs in the future, thus making them more developed and engaging.

Inspires New Ideas

Have you ever experienced writer's block? If yes, you definitely felt frustrated that you are going nowhere with your project. While there might be several contributors to this dilemma, it cannot be denied that one of its causes is a lack of ideas. With the sea of information you have at your fingertips using the internet, you can get many sources of inspiration for your next work. But if you do not start browsing them, you will remain stuck.